As Laud's eye--that ferret-like eye, which under its arched brow, looks with cunning vigilance from Vandyke's canvas--ran over his whole province, and his busy pen recorded what he learned, he sent to the Inns of Court--the benchers having betrayed Puritan tendencies--and insisted upon surplice and hood, and the whole service prescribed for the occasion being used in chapel before sermon. He claimed rights of ecclesiastical visitation in the two universities, and inspected cathedrals and churches, as to their improvements and repairs; condescending even to order the removal of certain seats employed for the wives of deans and prebendaries, and directing them to sit upon movable benches, or chairs.[47] English residents in Holland;[48] chaplains of regiments amongst the Presbyterian Dutch; Protestant refugees in this country; and the ecclesiastical affairs of Scotland, all came under his vigilant notice, and within his tenacious grasp.[49] In his own diocese and province[50] Laud's hand fell heavily on those beneath his sway. "All men," it is remarked, "are overawed, so that they dare not say their soul is their own." The clergy of his cathedral muttered their dissatisfaction. Reports circulated that they were "a little too bold with him;" and his remedy was, "If upon inquiry I do find it true, I shall not forget that nine of the twelve prebends are in the king's gift, and order the commission of my visitation; or alter it accordingly."[51] Dean and prebendaries were soon humbled under such discipline. In court and country, in Church and State, Laud, next to the Earl of Strafford, must be considered to have been the most powerful minister in England.[52] Pledged to a thorough policy of arbitrary kingship, he helped in all things his royal master, and his able fellow-councillor. When Strafford was in Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, the Archbishop was the great power at home behind the throne. "He is the man," said courtiers, when they would point out the most favourable medium for approaching royalty.[53] His own power availed for the province of Canterbury; by the help of his archiepiscopal brother, Neil of York, it sufficed for all England. Such a man, so bigoted, so imperious, and so marvellously active, was sure to make many more foes than friends. He had also ways, altogether his own, of making enemies. As he himself tells us, he kept a ledger, in which he preserved a strict account of the theological and ecclesiastical bias of clergymen, for the guidance of his royal master in the distribution of patronage. O and P were the letters at the heads of two lists. On the _Orthodox_ all favours were showered. From those favours all _Puritans_ were excluded.[54]